R&D Internationalization And Emerging Multinational’s Innovation Performance

R&D internationalization has become an important strategy for Chinese companies.However,from the R&D internationalization practice of Chinese enterprises,it can be found that in different regions and different host countries,the effect of R&D internationalization on the improvement of late-coming enterprises’innovation abilities is quite different.Therefore,’how to make R&D internationalization do play a role in improving the innovation performance’ has become an important issue.Basing on the realistic needs,this paper starts with the theory of knowledge transfer and focuses on the core issue of ’how to make R&D internationalization do play a role in improving the innovation performance’.There are two elements in the knowledge transfer process:knowledge sender(teacher)and knowledge recipient(student).From the perspective of knowledge recipient context,relational context,nature of knowledge and sender context,combining with the real environment,I select the home country’s regional foreign direct investment level,the knowledge distance and the host country’s looseness cultural to verify the hypotheses.Through the empirical analysis of 211 R&D internationalization events of Chinese listed companies during the 11 years(from 2003 to 2013),this study has the following three major findings:(1)R&D internationalization and innovation performance are positively correlated;(2)Regional foreign direct investment can positively moderate the relationship between R&D internationalization and innovation performance;(3)Knowledge distance negative moderate the relationship between R&D internationalization and innovation performance;(4)The looseness culture of the host country is a positive moderator for the relationship between R&D internationalization and innovation performance.Through theoretical and empirical research,this paper expounds the relationship between R&D internationalization intensity and corporate innovation performance,and opens up the mechanism of knowledge transfer in the relationship,which fills in the theoretical gap.Also,the paper provides theoretical guidance for R&D investment strategy and site selection for Chinese MNEs.